colden sun days

“A repitition is the re-enactment of past experience toward the end of isolating the time segment which has lapsed in order that it, the lapsed time, can be savored of itself and without the usual adulteration of events that clog time like peanuts in a brittle.”  Walker Percy – The Moviegoer

Pilot leans into it, points downward the dive-nose on this plastic bird

and tilts the world one over.

A true friend, this view - 

for all the places on the map

and all the people proud of their own,

it's what we've been through and been through together

as any good brother'd understand.

"And if you're partial to the night sky,

if you're vaguely a-ttracted to roof-tops."

Because the mood only comes round

once in a blue moon'r two,

you're best to cling awarely

tight, give full reign in order

see how far it travels you...

Thinking what a mysterious and lovely thing

how stories bend and bond, amalgamate

their characters.  Thinking how

"What's mine is yours

and yours of course is mine."

A pack full and leaning there

lazy on the wall

knowing all is primed and yet

unpromised, hidden round the corner

hidden somewhere neath

the hard and frozen earth,

thawing come the morning

come these colden sun days.

new york new york!

So after a long grey morning full of dark and brooding, early morning subway rides, consulting maps and hectic last-minute decisions; after all morning staring into the empty faces of men and women on working day commutes full of humdrum sighs and uninterested glances; after being lost and impatient and lost again (the only redeeming moment of which was an accidental overground passage into Queens and seeing the sun rise on graffiti’d tenements); after finding the Bryant Park and the New York library closed, which led to more mismatched underground rides and sore sandal-feeting through floursescent tunnels in the midst of one big impatient hurry; after all this, finally coming up at 116^th by Morningside Park, finally breathing fresh air in fresh space with healthy joggers bikers women and babies in strollers weaving in and out of giant old elms and live oaks on paved pathways.

Strolling like a visitor through the great corridors of Columbia University on Amsterdam avenue, feeling the great weight and tradition of historic and entrenched Academia, and now here comes the Field Hockey team in thier blue suits, pony tails, heavy bags on shoulder straps all passing by to climb into the big and idling game day bus.  And here come around freshly pressed slacks and business-suited, clean shaven boys (the sons of politicians in their youth primes unknowing) walking around clique-like across immaculate green lawns through the grand pavilion full of history and the buddings of society, and everything happening in the shadow of the old Parthenon-looking Library,  and lounging on her massive steps.  Strolling eventualy down Broadway with no agenda at hand but stumbing into, and realizing here it is what I've been after all of this time and worth the wait, stumbling now into

“Tom’s” restaurant here for 25 years they say: the busy plate-clinking group chattering kitchen steaming commotion throb of the city’s timeless heart.  Everything loud and going going to the Saturday morning drum-time – regulars and dark coffees, teas and scrambled egg plates with big Italian sausages and extra plates for toast softly crunch butter spread.  A big colorful room about living room size with newspaper clippings adorning the walls, long rows of table and booth down the center and every single one full with students, families, you name ‘em’s, with the breakfast bar on one side, big plate glass front window looking out onto the street from where I came and the window to the kitchen in the back where three or four cooks go busily at their tasks – and the whole place warm and merry, close packed and bursting with excited morning optimisms.

I sit next to an older woman at the breakfast bar, rapt with attention at her copy of the “Wall Street Jounral” until Louis (apparently manager/server/father of the joint, striding an easy 6’ tall with big barrel chest, thick dark hair and well kept beard and wearing a soft scowl like he really knows everyday secrets between creased cheek folds and deep inside Apron pockets) until Louis comes over and slides a plate of bacon eggs toast right underneath her.  She looks up startled, looks from Louis to her plate and back up to Louis again, says “Louis what is this?  Does this look okay to you?” holding up her bacon slightly uncooked.  And Louis retorts “Ah!  Of course it’s OK what do you think: Louis wants to get you sick?  Eat the food!” and goes on about his business chuckling to himself.  But lady persists, “Louis I just don’t know I mean, you could’ve left it on a little longer or at least I don’t know maybe -” and Louis has had enough, snatches the bacon straight out of her hand on his way back into the kitchen lamenting to himself “Ah Margie never likes it how I cook it never good enough eh?  What am I gonna do with this woman?  Jackie what do you think?  This bacon isn’t bad you think?”   And so on he goes chuckling and mumbling to himself and cracking jokes at every customer he comes across.  And every customer he comes across says “Ey!” and “Ay, Louis!”

Now from outside comes old Saul sauntering in with grey curly hair draped in a trenchcoat and shuffling in on 70 year old legs, says “Ay!  Everyone is here today the whole crew eh?  Gahaw haw haw…” and settles into his seat.  Louis slides this old fatherly figure a coffee with cream like probably has done so many times before.  A few minutes go by and soon I watch as, during a brief pause between taking orders and general running’s-around, Louis comes over to the end of the counter and leans one hand there like he probably has done so many times before (and I think must be a worn groove of the eternal hand there in the marble bar like the smooth stone of St. Pete’s toe in Rome rubbed clean from a-million adoring visitors) and stares out the window at the passerbys; stares at the shop across the way, at the unusually fine fall weather and all of the noted normalcy’s on Broadway street he recognizes so well.

He stares silently like this out the window and I think he'll stay there all morning until suddenly the old doorman (who earlier seated me here at the bar next to this woman) yells across the room in his native greek tongue about something or other important and directed at Louis.  I turn my attention back to Louis and actually watch as his mind pulls itself from the deep recesses of it’s mad reverie; and only after a minute passes can he issue some half-discernible reply to the old doorman.  But the doorman persists and now another server, Joe – like Louis but smaller both in personality and physical stature – gets involved from the other side of the bar and pretty soon all three are arguing merrily in quick Greek phrases and word gestures, anticipating each other as only age-old co-workers can know.  And all the while I’m trying to imagine what they are talking about though it doesn’t matter, and suddenly it ends with all three throwing their heads back in laughter and turning mindlessly back into their respective job routines, throwing glasses and taking orders and wearing well fitted white polo shirts and identical hats, all the while refilling coffees teas ice-waters and whatever else’s.  

Mr. October

You are somehow here brother or at least

you should be,

somehow brought us here

and somehow never leave.

 

The house is all a buzz with

big bass booming, cymbal crashing

atmosphere, upturned stereos,

screams and name callings, hey!  HEY!

tackles and shoulder hugs grabbing arms while

fresh stove scents come breeze-wafting

through hallways, worn-in cozy

blankets, pillow sheets and

backpacks, shoulder bags, shoes all a scatter

in the mismatch chairs sit jackets hats

on hardwood indoor autumn floors.

(silly to think so many other living rooms

hip and clean and miss the point).

 

Sit me down and look at you,

look at you so healthy friend, all woven together

by familiar faces in a fine-knit as your are,

with the simplest, most comfortable,

half full stomach, half drunk mind,

just got warm and glowing smile –

grew new bark around your pain and

learned to be a child again.

Tell me how the summer when...

 

Meanwhile out the windows a

December dusk is glooming,

seems to say “it’s dark out here and cold,

the year is growing old…”

Hardly would an ear to hear in

warmth of lamplit corners glow.

jacket weather

yesterday morning had my first real cold weather run.  it is perfect fall here right now.  same lake I've been running around all summer and same trees there in their same places.  almost painful taking in full breaths of sharp morning air, eyes dry, hands stiff and numb, but full body awake and ready to go any direction quick, jump over anything.  and I hadn't thought about it since, but was suddenly reminded of running around the elementary school track in SE Portland last fall, and one day especially when it began to snow and every lap I took left new snow prints in the same lane, pulled tight the drawstrings on my hood and followed myself around a few times.  and on the heels of that one, similarly reminded of a river-side run I took one morning in wichita exactly two years ago, even colder then and the trees already gone leafless, pausing in the middle of a red plastic walking bridge that spanned the water, and coming across a makeshift homeless shelter underneath one fallen tree on one remote stretch of river-bank.

static exhibitions where downtown weaverville storefronts boast big bails of hay scarecrow and pumpkin arrangements, telephone pole adds for the corn maze and the autumn festival and I have been here half the year.  still waiting for the call to say I won the fall raffle at the middle school fair, from the little girl with bundle of tickets and said I had a good chance.  friends coming in from all corners of the states to swing on our back porch in front of the fire and look at our stars and bump into each other while crossing through the kitchen.  everyday is a birthday and everyday is peak season, talked to an older lady at work yesterday who told me she had been here 14 years and had seen "many beautiful falls".  sports in full swing and I'd even watch baseball maybe.

of all the seasons more of a return to the regular, a settle me down for school, for work and for the winter.  a reminder that all of life is not free breeze summer and that hard work is on the way, that what used to be new will soon freeze over and the innate drive to persist, because one way or another and whatever you planned, this is the winter that you got yourself into.  pause to judge everything around you and up till now, and concluding finally that it isn't so bad, and actually if you put it that way I see it's all pretty good.  time for the travels and time for the hostings, and the always maybe next year...

vision of a waitress

Something about here alone at the table feeling that all too familiar lost in the universe or a quiet small town café on a main drag somewhere out in America that defines me, and telling it to a coffee cup.  The sole patron of westward spaces. Here at the table where I vaguely remember being before in another familiar life.  And watch the movies play while family friends brothers and lovers come and go emptying and filling chairs in a time-lapse sequence.  Even see memories of me on the sepia screen, birthdays family Sundays Friday night ballgames and fancy date dinners, from somber goodbyes to excited celebrations all along the Table spectrum.  Where every original thought was ever concieved or scribbled, where every group of officers sat and discussed the mornign agenda, where every set of grey-haired women ever gathered on a Monday morning to reconfirm the doctrines of goodness and change, where every group of bearded intellectuals met promptly to parley on the metaphysical makeup of God and meaning, where every seeking individual ever mused upon the watershed.   And always somehow this table the constant in a world of variables.  See now the gone tablecloth over rough plastic table with three good legs and one seen better days; the gone steel/plush chair with foamy rip right down the center that screeks across the linoleum; and either in the dusky morning or the waning early evening always – on the road from west to east coming together; the sad triumphant triumverant of knife fork spoon hastily wrapped in synthetic napkin and rolled up next to the plate; the blinking fluorescent lights illuminating street signs license plates stop lights and famous framed dollar bills; the big hairy dark haired chef slapping cold eggs onto a sizzling frying pan in the back there, sprinkling this and that and sandwiching hot butter inbetween two triangles of processed white toast; and the meat - big sizzling sausages rolling around over hopping bacon jumping grease and thick ham slabs getting warm too; big coffee pots always a-brewing in eternal rotation decaf or non sugar spoon and creamer nine sugar packet types to choose from neatly.  Something to do with me here temporary and the gone motherly waitress destined to stay and offer eternal wayward kindness to all the passers-through.  See her coming my way now with a world of trouble on her brow and a load to bear,  the greatest American novel still yet (and always) unwritten is the story of her 42 ordinary years, and yet she brushing all these aside to smile and motherly flirt while proudly scooting loaded plate underneath my chin as for child and great big mug of steaming coffee with plastic coke glass of ice water cubes floating against each other in there.  “Anything else, hun?”  Leaves me alone with great anticipatory thoughts of food and open distant thoughts of the road what has been and what will around the bend.  And when it’s all said and done she exchanges me a check for the empty greased plates and cold quarter full coffee mug which now she cradles deftly on one arm back into the bowels of the kitchen.  I pay with crumpled cash and out the plastic door causing the bell to ring, into car or truck or van and back across the black tar pavement streams to rivers to freeways and always abiding the law of the yellow lines as if some safety there inbetween, headed home or otherwise.  And later tonight, out the very same plastic door where eventually my waitress (double shift today and another on the way) turns out the lights, hastily flips around the open/close sign, sweetly says goodnight to the last customer while stacking chairs on top of tables to sweep before walking home by streetlamp to fall asleep with tired hair down still apron'd in the living room chair and dream about the good old days and all the worrisome days to come.  

the day hike scene

Sitting atop Craggy Pinnacle and the sun creeping behind me feel it's warmth.  Almost 10am, took about two and a half, three hours from the falls; boy I's up early this morning...  Near four thirty or five snapped wide awake and thought "a hike it is!"  Up early refreshed seeing as how having nursed the bonfire to sleep not long after sundown the evening before.  Took a minute to stare into the ember constellations glowing, then into the tent for reading adventures by headlamp, then drifting off before the third song.  Anyway up in the cold quiet dark of moonlight and clear thoughts, down to the waterfall for fresh water filling cups and bottles all - all the while darting accusing headlight this way and that toward every night noise expecting hungry staring eyes watching.  And shhh the otherworldy sound of two owls conversing somewhere perched above.  Packing up camp as the sky begins to bright - no sun yet - just that ever subtle illumination of the world that goes unnoticed from minute to minute till suddenly you realize "oh!  the cows need a milking..."  Strung my rucksack in a tree and I was off uphill alive boots clomping blood pumping eyes wide and gaining elevation.  Over fallen logs through creeks and catching all cobwebs every few feet of trail calling all morning spiders.  Butterflies up with the sun lazy recklessly bumping into me no idea.  Recognizing different families of greenery living at different heights along the mountain.  Find me chanting mantras unknowingly bits of songs and lost conversations who knows where they come.  Moving always forward always higher and generally falling daze to the foot to foot trance, all the while wondering who's out there staring back.

And now, after all this, sitting atop the Eastern United States - out of food, low on water and ready for a sun-nap such as these rocks of ages must be so accustomed.

working draft

I believe much more freely than I disbelieve.  I am quicker to agree than otherwise.  There is nothing I won't question, and nothing I will assume.  I could care less about proving or disproving, only wish to incorporate.  Everything I have ever learned has been the same lesson in different words.  Mysteries never last, but stories persist.  The greatest danger in the world is habit.  Habits are close cousins of Rules, and repetition will eventually ruin anything.  You might mistake my belief in all things for disbelief.  

I do not miss the days gone, or wish that tomorrow would come sooner; I wish to be here.  I have not been worried since I stopped worrying.  Everything has immeasurable beauty in it, and humor too.  I do not understand what it is to be bored, and couldn't be lonely if I tried.  I knew it before I was told.  You might mistake my self-reliance for selfishness.  

I could care less where you came from, or what other people say about you; I am concerned only with who you are.  I am not who I used to be, and do not assume that you are either.  I do not ask for forgiveness, because I have done nothing that needs forgiven.  Likewise, you have no business feeling guilty around me.  Nobody will ever understand you as well as you do.  In fact, no-one will ever know you, only relate.  And this is not sad.  I have a very big family, and we are all related.  You might mistake my love for all people as un-love.

In any case, do not take my word for it.

cheap buys, guys!

here's a poem about the three hours of free time between the time you wake up and when it's time to go to work:

needs to write

needs to exercise

needs to write, read, eat, fight

right now

needs money like a blue sky -

cheap buys, guys!

dollar thrill bills on friday nights

monday wednesday doomsday

will there be work on the worn horizon?

work for the weary?

work for the ready-bodied?

the fiery eyed and the ocean gazers?

the pony-tailed pontificators?

the bearded, the bedraggled,

the me's and the you's (but who's counting?)

still, the squirrel outside my window 

keeps busy, peanuts and pay-corns

sunday afternoon and

outside the blinding window

"howl, howl" says the dwindling wind

"who?" says the azure void, "says who?"

"please" I says

say us how to bloom and spare us your truth

last thing this generation needs is a name

's a tired old game

used to have a dream

then I went sane

here's the solution

says I, to me, softly:

uproot away from it all

start over simple-handed

learn the flowers, learn

heart is hidden 'neath the uncut sky...

"hasn't worked yet," says the optimist

"hasn't ever worked," says the yawning dusk

"hurry up!" says the due bill

"All-A-Buzz!" does the conductor

("grumble, grumble, grumble")

maybe we are

nothing but smarty-ants

bee-lining towards workaday

till one day

queen bee goes missing

takes her money to the bank and

leaves us constellation fishing,

"be back in 10 to 15"

in the alright evenings

So if anyone should ask, tell them I’ve been lickin’ coconut skins, and we’ve been hangin’ out, tell them God just dropped by to forgive our sins, and relieve us our doubt.  La la la la la lie, la la la la la la lie.

On the backporch of America, where noisy night light bugs fly and bright the dark blue yawning sky, we sing songs into the sound, crouched into our chairs concentrated.  On the tail-end of the hottest southern summer day, the after-humid rain, the magical dusk calm that follows.  Where once we were all strangers, and still are, but sharing something unsaid in the ever-evening.  Like seeing that everyman has his instrument, and every woman has her own, and that it all comes from the same place eventually.

Knowing that every workaday heart has it's doubts, thoughts that maybe the perfect life has flown coop.  That what happened to the dreaming tree, to the life ideal imagined, before your nose?  For certain there is a proper respect, a necessary grievance, for what's already been sung... but out of which seeds the maturity, the lesson learned, to recognize the moment while the light bug flashing lasts.

So if at all we are considered, consider us this lesson learned.  And it's why we’re still here, late,  laughing awake, and smoking chimney’s:  to put some fire up your ass.  Heard you were living normal life is when somebody's got to ask have you been kicking coconut skins?  And have you been hangin’ out?  Because God just dropped by to forgive our sins, and turn us inside out.  With youth anthems, and at-home hymns, and getting-younger-till-it-ends songs. Give your mother apple pie, and the father cloudless sky.  And know that it all returns to the same place eventually songs.

Underneath the Hickory trees where the antelope roam, underneath the milky galaxy where the ant hill home, underneath our fire faces gladly be, underneath strong meals and constellation-wheels - this is where you simply find me.  And so if anyone should ask (and especially the girl from the north country), tell them I’ve been fixing everything we did wrong.  Because I know you human tried, know we ordained to say goodbye, but I forgive your pretty face for to love you like a child.  

the illinois river

“for everyday I work on the Illinois River get half a day off with pay, all day long I’m makin’ up barges, on a long, hot, summer day” – Sara Watkins

It came to me today, returned like a forgotten friend.  We drove west into the hill country, backwards in time and scope.  Parked on the gravel stretch beside the highway, cars zooming round the curve at 60 mph’s plus some, zooming by in big whoosh whooshes.  Hiked a narrow trail through a corridor of trees parallel to the highway.  Headbands loose t-shirts swim-shorts and water sandals.  Weary.  Rejuvenated by a sudden afternoon off, afternoon to explore, afternoon to finally put hard hard money at work, afternoon to free.  And amid the sweltering heat were a-brewing storms, like premonitory things; and perhaps not so coincidentally.  The hazy sky cast sun-shadows on rock and river.  Could’ve been dusk, could’ve been dawn. Waded knee-deep through the low draught-ridden creek.  There for an hour or four, and all the while the feeling setting in – like sun sets into skin slowly darkening reddening hardening. Waded out to mid-stream empty-handed as the day I arrived.  Waded out to mid-stream stood grounded on slippery underwater wet-smooth rocks; stood there in the rushing, amid the dash wooshing and river washing.  And then, myriad rain-drops in a chaos pattern of returning home in quiet splashes.  And only the sound of what is.  And then, slightly bending knees and torso, deliberately dipped cupped hands half into water, and paused motionless, entrenched as a stock-still tree-trunk, and watched the river change it’s course to accommodate calloused, creative, potentially great only commonplace, above all owned, above all borrowed, hands.  Saw the immense potential of the natural standing order of things; saw you in his natural habitat, and land in hers; saw the ocean of the sea and the ocean of the sky, the two combined; saw the great cycle of water life gone and lost rush, and finally, saw myself, citizen of only the earth, a creek toward a stream toward a river leading upwards to higher sources, and so on – saw brilliant impermanence, free rushing saved away timeless now.  And smiled, realizing it had been a good while.

like a little lake, for instance

For instance,

's a mysterious lake that the morning mist makes in the clean waking hour of dawn

geese flying overhead ducks heads in their shoulders as men mow the lawn down

and I sit apart from it all

the pin oak the red oak, the drying up dead oak, been here through impossible times

but the lake as new as the morning dew, and men, just a blip in the books

and I find it hard to believe

the young girl the strong girl, the drying up old man, passing each other in stride

red neck-striped turtle just floats in the surface, all dressed up with nothing to know

and the sun stronger shines through the steam

round and round the heat is hot, fine gravel crunch beneath jogging feet shoes

a pocket of wild in parking lot country, and closing in quick, they say

- the world isn't over - just the world that you knew

and it hasn't a name you can fight

and it isn't much wrong or much right.

Quotent Quotables

Paul said to Peter, 'You gotta rock yourself a little harder.  Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire.' - Josh Ritter

How could one ever be bored with so many good things to see and feel!  This unity with our joyous surroundings, this ultra-penetrating perception gave us a feeling of contentment that we had not had for years. - Yvon Chuinard

I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life. - Jack Kerouac

You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair [...] You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names.  You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world.  Come to it any way but lightly. - Stephen King

"Oh dear Jesus, Oh dear Jesus" - 10 year old girl on my tour yesterday (with a thick southern accent) every time she went across a zipline

If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins most?  I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you?  You'd be wrong though.  It's Hambone.  - jack handy

Today was a good day.  It was better than most.  Didn't see me no demons, didn't fight with no ghosts. - Joe Purdy

"to hell with facts, we need stories!" - ken kesey

You know what else gets a bad rap?  Fiction. When I was young, I was taught that in order to distinguish “fiction” from “non-fiction,” all I had to do was think “fake” and “non-fake.”  The trick was helpful, but you can see how fiction was pre-disposed to fight the uphill battle.  I mean, what’s good about being fake?  We’d rather have cold hard facts right?  We’d take the truth over the un-truth any day.  (This is a lengthy blog entry, so if you’re strapped for time, I’d suggest just moving on, maybe come back later.)

You might remember a book by James Frey called A Million Little Pieces (2003), the captivating memoir of a drug/alcohol addict who nearly died, but through a series of incredible events learned through relationships and rehab to like himself again, and eventually, to attain sobriety.  In 2005, Frey’s book had topped the charts as a New York Times bestseller for 15 weeks straight; Oprah Winfrey chose Frey’s memoir for her book club.  Then, in a classic case of media vs. celebrity, a series of investigations revealed that Frey had fabricated a number of the events in his memoir.  Oprah brought Frey back on her show  (the episode was called “the James Frey controversy”) and tore his reputation to shreds on national T.V.  The media jumped all over the story, publishing articles like A Million Little Lies; even “South Park” did an episode about the debacle.   Frey’s publisher, Random House Publishing, was eventually forced to offer a full refund to any reader who claimed they had been “misinformed” (nearly 2,000 readers have since been refunded in full).

If anybody understands our culture’s cravings, it’s the big wigs in the entertainment industry.  This is why you see horror flicks that are “based on actual events,” or love movies that are “based on a true story.”  The question I always hear about Jack Kerouac’s On The Road is: “well did he really do those things or is he just making it up?”  I guess there is a place for these questions, but it’s a tragedy when they distract us from what is truly important: the story itself, and the lessons therein.  For me, Frey’s book was one of the most powerful discourses on “addiction” I have ever been exposed to, extending far beyond the realm of chemical addiction.  I just can’t understand throwing his story into the fireplace, even if, heaven forbid, he was only actually in jail for two months instead of the supposed four.

Besides, “fact” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Remember how it rocked your world when you found out that your history textbooks might not be 100% factual?  That they might be a “little” bit biased since they were indeed written by the winner?  You would think that, if anything, we could trust a textbook to tell us the truth.  Or how about those discrepancies you found in the Bible, like in the various gospel accounts?  

Here’s the truth, and yes, I mean the cold hard truth.  You ready?  Any time a “story” gets told – the very second that a human being takes charge issuing a narrative, whether it be a novel, a movie, or a simple account of what he or she ate for breakfast that morning – any time a person tells a story, “fact” goes out the window.

Just imagine every member of your family trying to recount the events of a certain Christmas, or two different sports teams giving an account of a game they played against one another.  No matter how hard you try to stick to what “actually happened,” you will never get it perfect.  James Frey is not a liar, neither was Kerouac, neither were Matthew Mark Luke or John (not by any means to compose some list of comparable authors).  They are all beautiful storytellers, and I hope we spend more time appreciating those stories than trying to figure out if they were “real” or not.  If I was a walking video camera, and you were a walking video camera, then maybe we’d give the world a true story or two; it’d be a lame and boring world, but hey, at least we’d have ourselves some facts.

Right now I’m reading a fictional story by Thomas Wolfe.  Wolfe grew up in Asheville; the town in his fictional story is called Altamont.  Now Wolfe called his book fiction, likely to avoid falling into a James Frey-esque controversy, but his novel is undoubtedly based on his young impressions of this area.  When the novel describes springtime, or the nature of the local people, or the patterns of the sky – well let’s just say, it has taught me a lot more truth about my backyard than any National Audubon society field book ever could.

So for anyone who reads “non-fiction,” and refuses to see a movie unless it was “based on real events,” I hate to break it to you, but I doubt that your sought-after stories contain any more “truth” than J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Lord of the Rings.  -This may sound like a heresy, and I hope it does – but even if you can’t quite stretch that far with me, I hope you can justify a place for fiction in your mind, and I hope that when it comes to certain “facts,” you can expose the man behind the curtain.

welcome to the show

Often-times, “entertainment” gets a bad rap.  The word carries a lot of baggage into the conversation.  Likely, upon hearing the word “entertainment,” you picture someone in a movie theater, face a-glow from the busy screen, cheeks full of popcorn.  The problem with entertainment is that it connotes being passive, even lazy, being distracted from real life.

I think there is a sense in which entertainment needs to be loosed from its bond, relieved of some of this baggage.  The beautiful thing about entertainment, and I think what needs to be emphasized more, is this:  in the process of being “entertained,” an interaction is taking place, and what’s more, that something valuable is happening in the midst of this interaction. 

All writing is entertainment.  Right now, I am entertaining you.  I am offering you something – ideas, visuals, some sort of stimulation.  You aren’t just sitting there lazily, letting everything I say drift into your mind.  It’s much the opposite.  You are actively engaging yourself in my words, you are processing for yourself what they are worth, and in this way, we are conversing.  Your mind is working on this idea, just as my mind worked on this idea, and so we come together on a certain plane of thought, and both of us are changed, in some small way, because of this interaction – isn’t that sweet?  Humans need entertainment, we crave it, we seek it out; we can’t live without it.  We need something outside of ourselves to come into our heads and stir things up; it’s how we learn.  Without entertainment, we would never learn to speak, to read, or to develop any complex ideas.

(And so now comes the admonishment).  Depending on what you believe is valuable in life, I hope you steep yourself with movies, books, conversations, etc… that actually have something worthwhile to offer you.  

Because the idea is this:  if I don’t watch movies about religion, and I never read any works on religion, and I don’t spend much time thinking about religion – then I shouldn’t expect to have anything smart to say about religion, or at least I shouldn’t expect to know anything more than what I learned when I was a kid, or whenever I last took a class on religion.  In other words, you are what you eat.  My favorite thing to eat are books, but there are a million and one ways to entertain yourself.  A lot of beautiful people out there have a lot of beautiful ideas; the best thing we can do is seek them out, in order to learn, and in order that we, in turn, become better entertainers.  

hold on to your butts

Hold on to your Butts!  Luts of things to see places to know people the meet and posit the know.  Here in North Caroliney are the brass buckle shiny belts shiny, here in the east is a maple leaf feast, a moot modern mystery scheme stars local gossiping locals.  On Cinco de Mayo, met me a wife-o, took her and a knife-o down to the bayou, carved us a bed out of hickory-ash, wed neath the stars as fed the wild turkeys.  For here is the land of the sky, and every body wel-bred in Weaverville yes ma’am.  Tour a give and look a tip, fire up to car the downtown trip slice of glimpse of swimming night of through sleeps and sheets on a firm mattress.  Universe winks and the closing dead of darkness ?.......? but still the healthy harken of the first still sun of man.  Must be dawn when Peter Rabbit on the lawn, perks an ear for robin’s song, singing that she knew it all along.

Quick Prosedy

Sitting in the ampitheater park up on the side of mount tabor while the basketball players play and the bikers pedal past the runners jogging.  Some small child stepped in “Dog Poo!” and his dad keeps saying “walk this way son.”  Up tall flights of stone stairs past the water reservoir with signs saying “anyone who throws such and such into such and some is subject to the maximum whodahum as stated in subject three six one four of the Oregon such and suchamitee”.  Now sitting on green park benches as I said in the ampitheater park of small black porous gravel sprinkled on top by miniature yellow crispy leaves littered in all such corners.  The stage in front of me is backed by a chivalrous row of 12 or so cedars (red or yellow?) that I can imagine project the sound toward the benches:  “Nice acoustics Zarathustra.”  12 mid-height cedars standing to attention like 12 apostles.  Remember how Holden Caulfield was so put off by the 12 disciples.  He says “yeah but they were chosen at random, and all they ever did was get in Jesus’ way.”  I don’t know I mean I like the apostles, sure they’re frustrating like when they argue over who has the bigger biceps but I mean everyone knows they are only human.  As if that was some kind of excusable excuse.  “C’mon man, I’m only human.”  Yeah but the problem is that you are all human… I don’t know.  “Wait just a minute, you expect me to believe that all this misbehaving grew from one enchanted tree?  And helpless to fight it we should all be satisfied with this magical explanation for why the living die and why its hard to be a decent human being?”  Well yeah David Bazan what’s your problem with the myth of the tree and the fruit and the snake I mean its beautiful in a way.  At least its something right?  It’s an explanation.  Take it on faith or don’t take it at all, they say.  Like they say every sort of belief requires big faith whether you’re Richard Dawkins or Joseph Smith himself.  What I do like is when Bazan says well “in what medieval kingdom does justice work this way?”  And that to me is identifiable because you see I have this problem with history she never sat right with me and we haven’t spoken in weeks.  I have this thing like why should I come into this world cursed and broken and without a say, you know?  Guilty until proven otherwise I guess.  But something inside of me has always believed the opposite of everyone, even enemies, even friends, even God:  Innocent until proven otherwise.  You see I entered into this crazy story in the year 1986 when everything’s been pretty darn well established by now, you know?  Its not like there are any original ideas, you know?  Its not like it hasn’t already been tried or written.  If you haven’t read about it yet, that only means you haven’t found the right book, I mean it’s out there somewhere for sure.  And see when I came into this world in 1986… well, see the world is full of mini victories overshadowed by giant history-repeating failures and there’s always the haunting grandfather time wearing suit and a tie up behind the podium with a microphone clipped to his coat pocket everything smooth and black or white ironed and starched except for his hands.  His hands you can’t help but noticing how they are all wrinkled and cracked and worn, they are so full of sins you have no idea the depths of the canyons.  But he speaks into the mike with that ancient southern drawl “and there is nothing new under the sun.”  What?  That’s not even fair.  And I guess that’s what I’m getting at – it just isn’t fair.  When I was a kid I was obsessed with the concept and I don’t think it ever left me.  Of course when you’re a kid, fair only matters so that you can be sure you get yours.  And when I came into this world in 1986, I feel like I was somehow robbed of my portion, you know?  A life where I inevitably make mistakes that have already and will always be made but still somehow I’m supposed to feel guilty about it?  Like I shouldn’t have done those things?  But it was inevitable.  But I could at least feel sorry for doing those things.  Well screw that.  Screw feeling sorry or bad or guilty for the fruit that was already eaten, or even for eating the fruit when it’s the longstanding tradition you were born into.  What a tragedy when people are motivated into good deeds by guilt or shame.  From now on I feel lucky, I feel blessed, but I’ll never feel guilty – for telling the truth or telling a lie or screwing up or succeeding, whatever that means… Traditions die slow, Joe.  When I was three years old I watched the Berlin wall fall down.  And when I was 23 years old I learned about the prejudice and the poverty and the downright unfairness that still goes on everyday between east and west Germany.  We’re always making these little victories and they always pale in comparison.  Which brings to mind Mom Teresa saying no great things are done only small deeds with great love.  I mean the damn civil rights movement was forty years ago and we still sit around making racist jokes.  And yeah, every once in a while I laugh, you know?  It doesn’t matter who or what or why or which color or which nationality or which party there is always the prejudice.  The “guilty until proven innocent” clause.  Man I hate that idea.  We’re all just so done up from the get-go.  But there was this one man who got it right.  Man he really got it right on the freakin nose.  The only thing in the entire universe that’s new and original and worthwhile is this selfless living bit.  Its so gosh-darn ridiculous that it makes sense.  It doesn’t even seem natural.  Deny yourself, live outside yourself.  Its so stupid that it makes me happy, I think.  I just wish people could come to live selfless lives because the love strikes them, or because they exhaust all the other roads to happiness and never find it, but not because they feel obliged.  I oblige you to do nothing son, but I trust the goodness inside you to work its way out – maybe that’s just too optimistic.  Anyway I see how my religion works, it was the history I was born into, choose it or not, and it works for me – but how foolish to spend your whole life convincing others that their birth-clothes are no good in comparison to yours.  Conversion’s such a finkish word, darling.  Work with what you were given, and just as you should never be proud for anything you were lucky enough to be blessed with, like your skin color, or your size, or your smarts, stop feeling guilty for the things you happened to inherit, it doesn’t help the situation.

sneak preview

tours are running full-swing this weekend at Navitat.  everyone on staff is super excited, all the guides are in motion and the slick new t-shirt designs are on display.  we've had lots of media/film/news crews out in the last few days.  below is a link to a cool, albeit long, video that really does a great job of advertising the course.  besides the crazy thrill of zip-lining, you get some great insight into the philosophy behind the course and it's design - two things that really set this course apart from others in the industry.

http://vimeo.com/11528611

times they are a-changin

here in Weaverville, NC, we get our kicks.

about 2500 people reside here: there are plenty of children, and plenty o' elderly, and its safe to say that brad joel garrison and I account for the town's mid-20s population.  most weavervillians work in nearby Asheville, many others work for Arvato Digital Services - the world's second largest replicator of CDs and DVDs and the towns most prominent facility. the Well-Bred bakery and cafe is our favorite hangout; we sit in the corner with our computers and watch as crowds of residents and the occasional flash-happy passerbys flow indoors and outdoors. the bakery is more often than not packed to capacity.  other than Well-Bred, the downtown Weaverville strip boasts furniture and pottery shops, a pizza joint and diner, a drug store, a town hall and a small park with a big old-fashioned lamp-post clock.

the current hot topic is a tuesday vote that will determine whether or not selling liquor by the glass becomes legal for the first time in town history.  there is a liquor store in town, but restaurants/vendors are limited to beer and wine.  a few days ago, I was writing in the bakery when an impressively annoying news reporter trailed by a large camera on legs went from table to table fishing for opinions on the upcoming vote.  I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the diverse array of opinions, and was proud of all my fellow townsmen.  Yesterday, a somber middle aged man made his position clear by standing in the middle of town with a giant sign around his neck (a universal sign of seriousness); it read: "liquor by the glass in not progress, it is a sin, vote no on tuesday."  I give him a ten for succinctness.  Tuesdays vote will show whether or not the campaign was successful, and I promise to keep everyone updated.

no lie, it's fun to be the boys from "out west."  for me, the West evokes sister-words like vast, open, young and new.  it's so fun to be in an area of the country champions a new set of characteristics, like maybe history, tradition, respect.  Of course, these are petty generalizations, and all fall apart once scrutinized, but there is no denying some blatant differences between "here" and "there."  Thomas Wolfe, a great early American author, grew up in Asheville and based many novels on the area.  Civil War memorials abound here; in fact, the land rented by our employer, Navitat, has a great history involving a father and four sons that all fought on different sides of the war, lived to tell about it, and continue to pass their property down through the generations.  

All this to say, it is exciting to be here in Weaverville, to plant roots in a new town, and to marvel at tradition so deep that all a newcomer can manage is to admire the budding spring leaves, much less try and comprehend the roots that are responsible for today.  A favorite quote from a favorite author goes something like "You would have to spend a winter here to even begin to understand."  After a few years of tossing this quote around in my head, I am really beginning to appreciate it's depth.  -  So here's to being a newcomer, and here's to being an old-timer.  And for the record, could I vote, I'd vote no on the new liquor proposal in Weaverville.  I honestly hope this town stays the same for as long as it can; and if I get thirsty, I'll just go to Asheville, it's cooler anyways.

note on leaving

Can you feel the night coming on?  Not till non did the dawn done dawn.  Gone words went and flew the coop, roofed the moon and floored the sky.  Clouds fly by, gas past sail-masts penciling the paveways.  Does anybody listen anyways?  This is a leaving kind of night, and tonight is dressed in fading colors, hammer on the guitar and snap snap snap the snare, because all I want to hear are songs and songs, “green grass and high tides forever”…

Now lets not say “itchy feet.”  Let’s not say “hit the road” or “open road” or “down the road.”  In fact let’s leave the road out of this.  The road’s been over-roasted, rewritten and rundown.  Rome mega-sized it, Dostoevsky criticized it, Whitman metaphysisized it and Cassady gave it sex appeal.  Lets forget the road altogether and just move on.  And by this I mean moving on to the moving on.  Why do you leave?  Well why do you stay?  Because you can?  Because it makes sense?  A pie piece of familiarity divided by the future...  Because it’s easy?  Cutting ties can be easy.  Leaving it broke if it’s already broke can be easy too.  If it ain’t easy it must be right, they say. 

Wonder if you ever had exactly what it is you need – but no, you have to miss it, to wish for it, to ache on it for seasons - only to have it, upon it’s arrival, disappear quick as it came… it’s the underlying sadness, or the underlying beauty of it all, whichever way you fancy.  If we really were born on our birthdays and gone on our death-beds then maybe time wouldn’t itch like burlap britches.  Has to be some part of me that connects with you beyond the moment.  (Guarantee you have a few gone faces with you right now, real as they ever were, and I bet you had that face before you were born too…)

fast times

the first training week is a officially over and everyone feels good after a week of early mornings and twelve hour days.  a professional video crew came out to the course this week, so hopefully in the near future we'll have a cool movie of the course to show off.  there wasn't time for much else besides work this week, but we did manage to lock ourselves out of our house one night, witness an awesome xyla-tie solo from an old man downtown who knew how to rock on another night, and discover the hoppin-est mexican restaurant this side of the mississippi.  also, we made some good friends this week that will most likely be our closest friends for the next 7 or 8 months.  now it's monday and things have suddenly slowed down, scattered storms and spring rain have replaced the sunny days, and today we have no agenda, other than maybe grocery shopping at a place called Ingles.  we might be working tomorrow, and we might be picking up some furniture today from a friend of ours in the middle of a move, he says he is trying to get back to that place in life where he can fit everything he owns into his truck, which works for us, now making the opposite transition.

if you have a day's worth

and a good word

and a night's rest

after keeping the company of your friends

and a woman

to greet the morning with

then you are blessed

you are blessed above all men

if you have a garden

or a houseplant

if there is an old man

who gets by

from the toil of your hands

cause you're the only one

who buys his floral prints

then you are blessed

you are blessed above all men

if you have a minute

to get it

its so simple

if you let it

cause we are blessed

lest we forget

we are blessed

we are blessed above all men

J Tillman - Above All Men

feeling deciduous

Yesterday we went on our first climbing trip in the Asheville area.  We drove about an hour southeast of the city into beautiful hill country along a winding river, and hiked into the biggest boulderfield I have ever seen.  The trees around here are so great, all the ash and oak and maple and magnolias... I think it's the diversity that gets me, definitely a change from the old evergreen forests of the NW; in our backyard we have a huge cherry blossom tree, a huger walnut tree, a row of firs and a bunch of others that I have no clue about.  Anyway speaking of trees, we were proud of ourselves while climbing because we set up a top rope anchor on a huge fallen tree, which took some ingenuity, and used our rope to climb a particularly giant boulder - this was at the end of the day, after we had already bouldered for a long time.  Well the rope took us forever to set up, and it was so funny because after we had been climbing for about 20 minutes, it suddenly started to rain for the first time since we set foot in Asheville.  It was so funny, we laughed and laughed about it.  

Anyway, I'm excited to get my climbing hands back and get better than Brad before long.  We have also been going on team jogs around the neighborhood, but before you get too healthy a picture of us, know we have eaten Arby's (dollar menu) three times in three days (it tastes the same here as it did in Portland).  Other than that we've been sitting on our porch a lot.  Oh and we also spend a lot of time getting corrected by the locals when we pronounce words wrong.  In other news, Navitat, the company we work for, has giant billboard adds scattered around town.  They show a picture of a squirrel wearing a harness and they say "Navitat Canopy Adventures" in big exciting yellow letters.  I don't know where they found a harness that small, but it's really pretty cute.

Roads Trip

Joel and I flew a plane to Denver where Frankenstein (Brad's Ford Explorer) was waiting, and Brad was there too, in flannel T-shirt and beard.  We did Denver to Arkansas in one day, and to the Buffalo River in NW Arkansas, where Ashley and Millie took care of us for two nights, and Kyle was there too.  Leaving Arkansas, the I-40 rolled us through Memphis Nashville Knoxville, and every skyline was a new excitement.  Tennessee was new territory for all of us, with her bluffs and her hills and her purple spring trees.  We camped and bon-fired in a state park, meeting our first new friends  that night, who taught us how to properly use "boonies" and "holler" in a sentence.  Joel practiced his new accent, and they all laughed in approval.  The next morning we finally showered, I found my first tick, and he was just a little guy.  After five road days, we were sitting on the streets of downtown Asheville eating buffalo wings.  Dylan, Abby, Evan and Cori met us for dinner that evening, and have taken care of us ever since.  The sun has also taken care of us: we've hardly seen a cloud since we've been here, and we all have one burnt forearm to remind us of our sweltering drive through Tennessee.

Now, after three days of being perpetually lost and confused, we have a home.  And not just any home, but a 50's style, 3 bedroom, half-brick home with more yard than we could need, more basement than we know what to do with, and a front door that boasts a perfectly centered doorknob (pictures now online thanks to joel).  We live in Weaverville, a small town about 20 minutes north of Asheville, and 10 minutes south of the worksite, a perfect compromise.  This morning we bought breakfast and feasted on our living room floor, laughing the whole time at the thought of it all.  We are still lost most of the time, we have no furniture, and no money, but those things will come easy as the summer goes.  We have no worries, only anticipation, because so far, every day has been better than the one before it.

We are incredibly lucky to be here in Asheville.  Like everything good in life, this opportunity was not earned, but has been given to us by a handful of friends and family that have been so incredibly generous as to help us out, and in myriad ways.  Work starts monday, and Garrison will be here in a couple weeks, and visitors will visit us throughout the summer, and everything will be fine, as soon as my poison-ivy rash goes away.